By David Kilby | Correspondent

St. John Vianney High School, Holmdel, offered a vibrant, informative, thought-provoking Respect Life Rally April 30, where the school brought in speakers from the area who are passionate about promoting a culture of life.

Sponsored by the Respect Life Ministry, Department of Pastoral Care, the event was funded by the 2013 Joseph A. Mazzella Memorial Respect Life Educational Grant for Catholic High Schools.  Through the generosity of the family of the late Joseph A. Mazzella, two grants of up to $1,000 each are offered to Catholic high schools to support projects like this rally. The high school also received the grant last year and put the money towards a similar rally.

The entire school and students from nearby  St. Benedict’s eighth grade attended the rally.

In his homily at the Mass celebrated for the rally, Father Daniel Kirk, parochial vicar in St. Benedict Parish, talked about “the two things (we’re told) we should never talk about, religion and politics.

“When terms like abortion, the death penalty and euthanasia come up we get nervous ... These are things that are emotionally charged,” he said to the teens who filled the gym. “There’s a temptation to keep these things in the dark. It’s easier to not talk about them and not be confronted by those who have different opinions.”

He reflected upon the day’s Gospel, wherein Jesus said he came into the world to bring light to it, and bring people out of darkness.

“When we do bring light into the conversation ... we must remember, ‘God did not come into the world to condemn the world but to save it,’” he added.

The talk by Catholic lay evangelist and Monmouth County resident Colleen Kelly Rayner of CKR Retreats, one of three given at the rally, discussed making big life decisions.

“I want to find out how we make the choices we make,” she said. She asked the students if they could keep just one thing, forsaking everything else, ‘what would it be?’

After discussing different answers students gave, she brought the teens back to the point that, as Christians, the one thing they should choose to keep is Jesus.

“When God becomes the most important thing in your life, it changes how you make decisions,” she said.

She told her story about how she and her husband were not able to conceive a child. Without God being first in her life, Kelly Rayner said she wouldn’t have had the faith and hope to accept this plan God had for her. But after accepting and noticing God had a different plan, she had the chance to adopt a child born of a teen mother, a child that needed a home and family.

Nathan Maurer of Generation Life, a movement of young people committed to building a culture of life, gave some strong arguments for being pro-life during his talk with the teens.

He said being pro-life is not just about opposing abortion.  “It’s a way of living that affects the whole person. If we’re pro-life to the core that means we respect every single human life from conception to natural death ... and stand up against everything that doesn’t recognize that every person is made in the image of God.”

He gave historical examples like the Holocaust and slavery, where Jews and slaves were considered not fully human.

“Our government is saying babies in the womb are not human,” he then said. But when a child is conceived a new DNA structure is formed, he explained.

“Twenty-one days after conception, the baby has a heartbeat. At 11 weeks, the child has fingers, toes, arms and legs ... It would take a total denial of all this biology to say this person isn’t human.”

He encouraged the teens to pray for an end to abortion. Then he told a story about a woman who was about to abort her child, but while she was sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office she saw a man outside the window praying next to the clinic, kneeling on the sidewalk in the rain. She thought, ‘If that man, who doesn’t even know me, can do that for my baby, I can sacrifice for my baby too.’ The woman wound up giving birth to the child.

The many aspects of respecting life seemed to resonate with the students. Charles Okere, St. John Vianney senior, said to him, respecting life means “treating others how you would want to be treated yourself, showing respect toward others, not showing any malice to anyone.”

Rachel Hendricks of the Monmouth Coastal Respect Life Committee, in her talk, shared her joy of being a wife and mother, and explained how it’s all part of God’s plan.

After asking  the teens what was the greatest gift they’ve ever given someone, she said that God “desires each one of us to give ourselves away to the world.” Sharing the words of St. John Paul II, she said, “We only discover our true meaning when we give a complete gift of ourselves.”

“When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want to give yourself to them completely,” Hendricks said.

Sharing a little bit about St. John Paul’s “Theology of the Body,” Hendricks spoke of how the Holy Trinity is an exchange of love between the Father and the Son; and the love they have for one another is the Holy Spirit. She then explained how marriage reflects the Trinity.

“Man is called to completely empty himself for his bride, pour himself out and everything he has,” she said. “In gratitude, the woman gives that love back to him. That love is so real it becomes a third person, and in nine months you get to give the person a name.”

Jeff Johnson, campus minister, explained why it’s important to offer these types of respect for life events to high school students.

“During their teenage years is when a lot of lifelong opinions are formed,” Johnson said, adding that the rally is meant to counterbalance what the teens are hearing from the culture in general. “I want to make sure the students hear an alternative” to the culture of death.

Suinda Sossenkopp, a St. John Vianney freshman, said she really enjoyed Kelly Rayner’s talk.  “It was very inspirational ... She told about her struggles to have a child. The stuff she went through really touched me.”